Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti (41 page)

He smiled again.

— I came to apologize, and to see how you are, but Libète, that’s not all. There is something else I have to tell you. Something else I haven’t been able to get out of my head.

— I don’t care, whatever it is, she said. Something broken has been fixed. That’s all that matters.

His smile fades and face turns grim.

— Libète, still you must listen to me. I have been thinking hard. He takes a deep breath, preparing to voice something she knows will be heavy. Libète’s own grin disappears, new fear creeping in.

Jak leans into her ear and whispers.
I think I know who had Claire and Gaspar killed.

Joure kote ou prale pa kote ou soti

Curse the place you are going to, not the place you came from

Byen pre pa lakay

Close is not home

Though it is late in the day, the guard lets them through. Maybe he takes pity on the bedraggled girl in her frayed clothes? Or on the boy with his limp?

No, he lets them pass because the children gave him a soda, and $3.

Moments later, Lolo appears before the children, passing from dark to light. Libète can’t contain her excitement. She calls to him. His eyes widen at sight of the pair, and all three move to the room’s far wall, away from the others, the inmates and visitors.

— You won’t believe this! the girl proclaims.

— What? What is it?

— Go ahead, Jak. Tell him!

The boy is sheepish. He looks at wasted Lolo in horrified wonder. It is the first time he has seen him this way. He gulps.

— I think I figured it out.

— What? Lolo barked. What do you mean?

Libète couldn’t help but cut in. He’s figured out who killed them!

Lolo stepped backward, dumbstruck. He tried to speak but stammered, each sentence another false start. Tell me. What you know. His eyes carved into Jak, making the boy wince and look away.

— Just start at the start, Jak. Libète placed an encouraging hand on his back.

— Well, we know who the actual killer was. Even though we don’t know his name. He came after me, and Libète, before dying in the quake. He wasn’t someone from the community—we had never seen him before. Well, we had seen him—he followed us, disguised as a drunkard when we went to Yves’ place in Wharf Soleil.

— Don’t get bogged down. Who is it?

Jak still looked to the floor and grimaced. Walking this path through his memory seemed to pain him.

— We also know he had a gun and a nice moto that we saw when he killed Officer Simeon. A pistol isn’t so very rare, but an expensive motorcycle is. It was a brand new Suzuki, an import. I remembered the type. And Libète took a watch from his wrist, worth a lot of money. He hid it high up his ratty sleeve, so people couldn’t see.

Jak gulped.

— And he told Libète he killed them for money. He was hired. Someone experienced in doing these things.

— Go on, Lolo said. He had closed his eyes tightly, shutting out the world to concentrate on Jak’s reasoning.

— Then there’s the way he killed her. He made it clear to cut Claire in such a way that it brought to mind Ezili Dantò—the seven wounds, the tongue cut out, the child in her arms—

Lolo cringed at the memory. Jak had finally looked up at him, but hesitated before pressing on.

— You see, he could have done this to make others believe it had something to do with Voudou, or that that the killer was crazy. We know he was not.

— When he tried to kill me, Libète blurted, he said it was a
message
. One meant for someone else. You told us yourself that Claire became secretive. She knew something!

Lolo’s eyes sprung open. It was because of the pregnancy, he said. It’s because she was ashamed.

— I agree, Jak said. But only in part. Being pregnant in itself doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to keep everything about the pregnancy so secret. There may have been shame, but why not tell a single person about Gaspar’s father? Why hide the pregnancy from everyone? She knew that as soon as the baby was born, everything would change for her. Either she knew something dangerous, or the baby’s father was a danger to her. I believe it was both.

— So she was killed to cover up the truth surrounding the baby and to keep her from spreading whatever knowledge she held.

— None of this is new, Lolo said impatiently, and with more hostility than Libète expected. Get to the point, Jak.

— Be patient, Lolo, Libète snapped, pointing a harsh finger at him. He’s getting there.

Jak continued, more excited now. What secret they wanted to keep her from spreading, I still don’t know. You told Libète that the father is at the center of it all, and I agree. And I believe by knowing the father we know the one who had them killed.

— But no one
knows
who he is!

— But there are things of which we can be certain, things that point to him! We know the baby was light but not albino. Claire was not light-skinned. That limits things.

— You came here to tell me he’s a mulatto? Christ, this really is nothing new!

— Shut
up
, Lolo! Libète shouted. All others in the room turned to look at them. Libète, uncomfortable, turned to Lolo and hissed. Just listen!

Jak was undaunted now.

— He was probably someone either at home, in La Saline, or at work. Those are the places she spent all her time. Which place would an unwanted child affect most? It’s nothing rare to see an unmarried mother in Cité Soleil, even in strict religious homes. So it had to be her work. Maybe she feared losing a good job. But more likely because her boss was the one who had taken advantage of her. She worked in administration. And a boss at a big factory could have the money to pay someone to kill her.

— Maybe, Lolo said. But it’s a big business. Lots of mulattos run it. How could you know which one?

— That’s not everything. I was listening to the radio a week ago. That’s when it came to me.

— Music gave you the answer?

— No, Jak hushed Lolo. A talk show. They were talking about senate races and candidates. Benoit and Bienamié came up. They were going through the qualifications of the different men. The announcer said that Benoit was the owner and president of a big garment factory.

— So?

— Lolo, stop being stupid, Libète said. Which one do you think?

The children’s implication came across clearly.

— You mean—Global Products? Benoit is the president? You think
Benoit is the father?

It hit him like a truck. He lifted his hand to his head, reeling from it all. How can you be sure?

Jak reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper. Lolo, he said. I saw Gaspar with Claire while they were living, and I was one of the last people to look at Gaspar’s face after he died. I studied it. His features — he tapped his head — are caught in my memory for all time. As soon the Benoit connection emerged, I knew.

He unfolded the paper to reveal Benoit’s campaign poster, one featuring his large, disembodied head.

Lolo saw it for the first time. Even he could see the resemblance between child and Benoit when put before him so plainly.

— Mon dieu! If this is true—

— Then the man who had a woman and his child killed is about to become our new senator, Libète interrupted. And, she added breathlessly, we may have a way to get you out of here!

Lolo began to shake, his eyes glassy before small tears gathered, threatening to fall. He grasped the blackened bars, the veins tensing on the backs of his hands. He whispered. No one will believe us. Ever.

Libète touched one of his hands. We’ve come far, Lolo, further than we ever thought. It’s my fault you’re trapped here, we all know that. But I swear that I will see you leave these walls. I swear there will be justice for the victims, all of them, and punishment for the guilty. Now that we see the truth, I won’t be able to stray from it. Cité Soleil is my home, our home, and we must do all we can to protect it.

The Sun shimmers over the ocean waters sweeping below. Not another ship is visible on the horizon. Libète stands upon the top deck of a ferry, watching the mainland shrink as La Gonâve grows larger with each passing minute.

Libète’s first passage from La Gonâve to the mainland was one of enslavement, literal and figurative. She imagined it as a glimmer of what the passage was like on the slave ships of old, the formerly free not knowing the harshness of what waited on San Domeng. This trip back to La Gonâve, at her own initiative, was made with her chains finally broken. She breathed the ocean air in deeply, exhaling all of Cité Soleil’s pain and misery.

She was ready to experience her namesake, to experience true and lasting liberty.
Finally.

The path to the ferry was unremarkable. She fled her tent in the early morning, carrying with her one change of clothes, a pair of flip-flops, and a bit of hardened bread in a plastic bag, reinforcing it with a second so that it might last the entire journey back to La Gonâve.

She looked at her sleeping Uncle as she slipped out the tent entrance, feeling a spike of guilt for leaving without a word. This left quickly. She lay foot to road, thoughts of Jak, Elize, Lolo, Davidson, her Uncle, and poor, bloodied Marie Rose coming to mind. They were difficult, and she pushed them down.

Rushing across the open field, she located the site of her secret cache.

A few days before her departure, she had counted the money remaining from the watch’s sale to the Bric-a-Brac dealer in Project. She knew that she had just enough to pay for the bus to the docks and the ferry passage over the water—not enough for a return trip. She couldn’t fully form the thought in the fog of tiredness that hovered about her, but there was something fitting about the money from her assassin’s watch giving her the freedom to go home.

The ferry approaches the island now, the city of Anse-à-Galets slipping into view. She sees the divers with their dinghies, the vibrantly-painted sailing ships navigating the shallows surrounding the port. Anxious thoughts bubble up inside. Who will she find? What has changed these past four years? And the most nagging of all: how will she survive?

The day grows long. The trip to see Lolo and return back to Cité Soleil has eaten up hours, but they have been ecstatic.

The two chatter away as they once had, plotting how to free Lolo in low and serious tones, telling stories of all that’s passed in the last few months, and laughing madly at jokes whose humor is lost on the other taptap passengers.

Libète has almost forgotten the horrific events of the night before as the Sun checks out for the day. The dark makes her sober again, and Jak takes note.

— It will be okay, he whispers. Someday.

She looks at him with sad eyes, tired eyes, her trembling lips wondering if the truth can be known. Can he be told of her time on La Gonâve and the horrible, beautiful things discovered there? Of the secrets she has not yet voiced to another? They are heavy things, hidden deep and sealed inside her soul.
Not yet
, she decides, lips still uncertain.
Not yet.

He does not pry, and she is grateful.

A new question comes to her mind. Don’t you need to get back to the school?

He shakes his head.

— What do you mean?

— I left today. When I wasn’t supposed to.

The thought hadn’t even occurred to Libète that Jak was out of school on a Monday.

— You left? For good?

— No, he reassured her. No. I’m at the top of my class, way ahead of the others. Even if I go back in a few weeks, I’ll be able to catch up again.

A refreshing smile lit her face. You’re too smart, Jak. Too smart for your own good. Where will you stay?

— I could ask the same question.

Libète shrugged. We could go back to my Uncle’s, or stay with Davidson. I don’t really like either option, not with everything that’s happened, not with what we now know.